I've always kind of been curious about this (judgement free zone here; we're not here to tell you that you HAVE to get an avatar). Why do some of you not have avatars? I can kind of get it when you have a few posts and just got here but I've seen members with hundreds (even thousands) of posts with the stock image of "blank face man"...

For those of you with avatars that really really want to post, I suppose you can tell us why you have chosen that avatar or give the faceless ones ideas for avatars. Also, if you do have an avatar, please don't vote for it would ruin the integrity of my totally scientific poll and the thousands I got in grant money would all go to waste.

EDIT: Options explainedToo much work (you don't care enough to do the work or you just plain don't want to do the few steps needed to make an avatar)

Can not decide (There are too many choices! You have ideas but can't decide which to go with)Can not get it to work (technical difficulties and/or potentially user error but ultimately, you want an avatar but you can't get it to work)

I like having a "blank slate" (No avatar means that there is no pre-conceived notion of you when you post. For example, a "Battlefield" avatar might give people the idea that you're a big FPS fan)

You can customize the avatars? (Somehow, you never realized it was an option)

Other (You probably have an avatar already and are looking to ruin all my research! Otherwise you might not have an avatar and truly do have a different reason and I'm just going all conspiracy theory on everyone)

I would go without an avatar, and did for my first few posts, but I guess that they really want to be anonymous while posting. I picked up an avatar so I'd be recognized. And much like Daystar, I'm under a contract to not change my avatar. If that happened, I'd be trying to divide by zero. -.-

DoPo:I have an avatar. I voted other. Because YOU CAN'T REMOVE MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH! I have the right to vote. :P

Damn it! Years of planning and millions of dollars in research funding down the tube! I guess I'll have to go to Plan B and start knocking on random houses until I find a user on the Escapist who has no avatar...

Xan Krieger:I can't get it to work, I tried to use the one that permabanned people use since that's what all my friends are using but I can't figure it out.

I know a little bit about the black arts that is avatar adjustments. What is it that you want? The permaban gif in I presume or something else?

EDIT: Everyone's favorite Tetris-themed user has the gif ready for you right below this post if that's what you were after. Otherwise if it's something else, feel free to ask me and I'll see about setting you up.

Xan Krieger:I can't get it to work, I tried to use the one that permabanned people use since that's what all my friends are using but I can't figure it out.

I know a little bit about the black arts that is avatar adjustments. What is it that you want? The permaban gif in I presume or something else?

EDIT: Everyone's favorite Tetris-themed user has the gif ready for you right below this post if that's what you were after. Otherwise if it's something else, feel free to ask me and I'll see about setting you up.

And paste it in the "Image URL" box on the change avatar page, and click 'Update'.It should work then.

I swear that never worked before, I am not that stupid.Thanks for fixing whatever needed fixing with it. I hereby dedicate my avatar to my many friends who no longer post here, may they never be forgotten.

TopazFusion:Also, I much preferred it when it didn't show any avatar at all, if the person hadn't set one, rather than showing the default 'faceless man' one.

Yeah, I did better with no avatar, at least then I'd see some part of the username from the corner of my eye and thus somewhat distinguish users, now the "faceless" avatar draws my view so I just see the same person possibly talking to himself and I have to look away from the post to see who actually posted.

DoPo:I have an avatar. I voted other. Because YOU CAN'T REMOVE MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH! I have the right to vote. :P

Damn it! Years of planning and millions of dollars in research funding down the tube! I guess I'll have to go to Plan B and start knocking on random houses until I find a user on the Escapist who has no avatar...

Huzzah! I ruined you. And so I'm one step closer to RULING THE WORLD!

:P

I suppose that while I'm here I should mention that I always choose an avatar before posting. Just something I do - when I register on a forum, I first go over all the account info I can set and tweak - I set an avatar, a signature, maybe tweak the time settings, go over the profile info and so on.

TopazFusion:Also, I much preferred it when it didn't show any avatar at all, if the person hadn't set one, rather than showing the default 'faceless man' one.

Yeah, I did better with no avatar, at least then I'd see some part of the username from the corner of my eye and thus somewhat distinguish users, now the "faceless" avatar draws my view so I just see the same person possibly talking to himself and I have to look away from the post to see who actually posted.

I agree. It's kinda distracting seeing it EVERYWHERE.

I think it changed around the time the forum layout changed. I certainly don't remember the old forum layout ever showing the default avatar.I guess they decided during the forum redesign to enable all the default avatars. I'm not quite sure why though...

I'd guess they actually fixed it - I suppose it was supposed to show the default avatars but it didn't for some reason. Or at least I just assumed that's what happened. Then again, I don't think it's actually working now - I haven't seen a "faceless woman" avatar (well, I have be very few times - I'd guess it was the user who set it).

I appreciate users with avatars, it makes them distinguished. But I do make a habit of looking at names. It prevents my imagination from blobbing all the faceless posters together into a single entity.

I like how out of over 20 posts, only two have been users without avatars. My opinion? Not a fan of blank avatars as a certain controversial thread of mine detailed, it's a one minute job to assign yourself an avatar and gives your posts a flavour of your personality, no reason not to really unless you've literally just joined.

To be fair, when I first started posting here I couldn't be bothered to put up an avatar. But the more I posted here, I decided that I should have one. I can't see it changing any time soon as I can't be arsed to.

I chose "too much work" although maybe I should have gone with "other" because it's more of an "I don't care enough" thing. If I was a more active member of this forum, I would probably go to the trouble of choosing an avatar, but since I only follow the forums sporadically, and post even more infrequently, I don't really have the investment in the community to spend time thinking about how I want to present my virtual face on the Escapist.

eimatshya:I chose "too much work" although maybe I should have gone with "other" because it's more of an "I don't care enough" thing. If I was a more active member of this forum, I would probably go to the trouble of choosing an avatar, but since I only follow the forums sporadically, and post even more infrequently, I don't really have the investment in the community to spend time thinking about how I want to present my virtual face on the Escapist.

...son of a bitch! I can't believe I forgot to add "I don't care enough" to the poll. This is why I should leave thread creation to the professionals...grumble grumble grumble...

Although I suppose in my mind, that's what "Too much work" was for now that I think about it. Can I count that as my redemption? I hope so because I already did. I have edited the beginning post to clarify the options and made sure "I don't care" was included :)

I misread the title and thought it was "Why do you have an avatar". Until recently I didn't. Cause I really could not be bothered choosing one and I was mostly lurking. Plus I knew I wasn't going to come up with something memorable.

A week or two ago I was going through FB photos and I came across one of me smoking a pipe. Changed that to my profile pic, got a few peoples saying I look damn fine smoking a pipe and wearing a suit. So I decided to make it my escapist avatar. Cause...

Well, yeah. I sorta agree. I don't look that bad smoking a pipe and wearing a suit. And it might make me stand out. And maybe start a conversation with someone. I dunno.

Although I suppose in my mind, that's what "Too much work" was for now that I think about it. Can I count that as my redemption?

Sure; sounds about right.

I guess I should also mention that after initially not having an avatar due to my, at best, peripheral participation in the Escapist community, I was further spurred not to adopt one due to my amusement at all the angry posts about people without avatars (I mean, it doesn't seem like it should be that big of a deal: I always look at both the picture and name behind a post, so I'm never confused by seeing multiple posts with the same avatar pic, but I guess it takes all kinds). However, I suppose that isn't a very nice reason on my part, so maybe I should start using an avatar pic. How about this one?

Avatars are, In my opinion, the face of the poster, and I generally view people who have hundreds of posts without and avatar to be lazy. It's not a personal thing, I just can't understand why they wouldn't unless they can't be arsed or don't know how.

The first forum I ever joined had a large user base, frequent posters, and lots of people who enjoyed creating signatures. I learned to do simple editing of images to make signatures, and found myself spending hours simply creating magnificent signatures; so many, in fact, that I would change it damn near every day (which could understandably get annoying to some people).

I tend to identify posters by their avatar, so I often lump together people with the blank-face avatar as being the same person(s) as I quickly read through the forums (I don't have much time usually so I don't take the time to read forum names, lol).

I have one (obviously), but when I tried to adjust my pint sized slasher one I borked it. I'll try again later, but for now I'll stick with my first avatar... well my first as Toad of Truth anyway. I had a Vault boy avatar before deciding I didn't like my name and so changed it (the avatar too because I liked this better).

I honestly don't care very much if people don't have one, though it can be annoying when there are 30 faceless people in a thread. It gets confusing and makes me glad I generally know people by name as well as by avatar.

I may be the only one who didn't think Fappy disappeared for awhile when he wasn't Mao XD